


Interlude: A Leg To Stand On

by Apetslife



Series: John Silver Can't Get There From Here [5]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: AU From Mid-Season 4, But No Lash, First Time, Here be porn!, M/M, Pirates, Possessive Behavior, Post-Canon Fix-It, Rum, This John Silver Is Not A Bristol Tavernkeeper, sodomy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-07
Updated: 2017-04-07
Packaged: 2018-10-15 20:53:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10557540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Apetslife/pseuds/Apetslife
Summary: In which they fight, and they fuck (finally!), and Silver gets a new leg.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This series is getting to the point where if you haven't read the previous installments, you might be a bit confused about what's going on. John Silver Can't Get There From Here started because I couldn't really see our Silver fitting into the Treasure Island character in any way, said "fuck canon," and here we are. Next chapter will be back in Nassau and have lots of Madi, so the _Penelope_ is finally heading for her home anchorage.

“You will stay aboard with the men, you will rest your shoulder, and that is _final_!” Flint shouts at him from between clenched teeth, and John Silver has never wanted to punch someone so badly in his entire life.

“Fuck you.” He answers, proud of the fact that he’s not screaming it. He leans over the desk, just to make sure his point is heard loud and clear regardless. _”Fuck you_ , fuck your high handedness, fuck your arrogance, and fuck your idiocy if you think you can order me about like a child. I’m the quartermaster here and I do not answer to _you._ ” Carefully, he stands up, situates his crutch, and gingerly makes his way out of the cabin, not waiting for a reply.

He throws the door shut behind him and it slams very satisfyingly, and he has to stand and pant with anger for a moment, staring blindly out over the water and anchored ships scattered around them, all moored in the great bay of Portsmouth.

“It’s that red hair,” a voice to his left says thoughtfully, and he twists to see Old Pete standing there by the great wheel, sucking philosophically on a pipe. “Me second wife had hair redder’n his and she was forever flinging plates at me head when she’d get in a fuss about something. Let it lie, give him a bit of sweet in bed, he’ll come ‘round.”

Silver can tell his mouth is gaping open, he can tell he’s staring, but he cannot for the life of him form a single word of reply. Old Pete pats him consolingly on the shoulder and ambles away towards the aft hold. 

Shaking his head like it will dislodge the memory of those words forever, Silver makes his slow, careful way after him. Even this late in the spring, so far north the sea is slate-gray and cold, swelling high and threatening and juddering the _Penelope_ in her berth. Every wave kicks the deck up under his foot and the crutch into his shoulder, and he curses each time, more and more inventively as he goes.

“Shitting tittyfuck,” he gasps as one crosswave hits her just right and the deck slews sideways and then up. The hard edge of the crutch slams into the crease of his arm and the pain is blinding, nerve-killing, and as he starts to buckle he gropes for the rail and then there are hands on him, holding him up and then easing him down to a careful sprawl on the planking.

“You are the stubbornest shit I have ever had the misfortune to meet,” Flint snarls at him, letting go as soon as he’s safe.

“I learned from the best,” John bares teeth up at him between heaving gasps for air. Those fucking chains in Maryland had done more lasting damage than he’d been willing to admit even to himself.

He really needs to find a new leg.

“If we hadn’t diverted from Trinidad, you’d be home by now and resting,” Flint appeals, though it’s less pleading and more accusatory in tone. “Just fucking pretend that that happened, will you? I can send a man to find a selection of legs to bring back to the ship, and return the ones that don’t suit.”

“Without me there, they’ll be too long or too short, or not fit the stump properly, and you know it,” Silver spits, and struggles back up until he’s half-kneeling. “And then what? A charming little procession of wherries to haul them back and forth until by luck the right size is found? That will be a fine parade for the fleet’s amusement, surely.”

“Don’t be dramatic,” Flint growls, but Silver knows he’s made his point when hard green eyes sweep over the collection of ships bobbing at anchor all around them.

It’s damned claustrophobic.

“Nothing is going to happen ashore,” Silver says, for probably the tenth time today. “The British have their hands full with the French inland here. Portsmouth’s always been a free for all and it’s worse these last few years, you know this.”

Flint scratches his beard and smooths his moustache, little tics that reveal more about him than he’d probably like. He’s filled out this last year since the war, losing the lean and hungry look they’d all shared since the becalming. His shoulders look massive and block out the sky from where Silver still hunches down on the deck, shaking his left arm gently to get some feeling back besides numbness and pain. 

“I don’t like it,” he finally says, still not looking at Silver. Every line of him is tense. Even his hand at his side is balled into a fist.

“I don’t care,” Silver says bluntly, and shoves himself back to his feet.

*  
On the third night out of Portsmouth, Silver stares at the night-black ceiling of the cabin he shares with Darby, Shaw, DeGroot and Poole. It’s a tiny, charmless little room, probably once the midshipmen's quarters, but it’s miles beyond the crew berths with hammocks strung down among the guns and cargo. His hammock barely bumps any others when they swing. Luxury. And yet he’s completely unable to sleep.

He sits up, swings himself around, and reaches for his new leg.

The sudden light as the night-shield is taken off the lantern makes him blink and startle, and Darby is staring right at him from his own hammock. And there’s the Master’s Mate Poole behind him, sitting up in his own berth, and young Shaw a looming, apologetic-looking shadow beside them both.

“Begging your pardon, Mr. Silver, and I mean this with the greatest respect, but get the fuck out,” Darby says, not unkindly.

DeGroot snores gently on beside Silver. He’s been known to sleep through a full broadside before, though, so Silver isn’t at all surprised.

He _is_ surprised by this small midnight uprising.

“I’m just leaving,” he says, gesturing with his new wooden leg.

“I don’t mean now, I mean for good. You’ve been pacing and tossing and stomping back and forth for nights on, and it ain’t right, us not sleeping like this. We’re working men, Mr. Silver, and when working men don’t get their proper sleep, things go to shit.”

“I’m sorry,” he says automatically, then pauses and frowns. “You can’t kick me out of my own cabin.”

“We took a vote. Poole cast DeGroot’s vote, that’s his right, and anyway we unanimously voted for you hangin’ your hammock somewhere else.” Darby leans forward, and he does look tired, dark circles under his eyes, and Silver gets a nasty flash of something that might be remorse. “We don’t care where you put it, but that hammock can’t stay here.”

Silver looks at Shaw, who looks away, the guilt magnifying until it’s nearly a visible aura around his huge shoulders. But he doesn’t speak up against it, and Silver sighs. They’d taken a vote, after all.

“Fine. I’ll move it in the morning. As I said, I was going above anyway, so don’t bother with it now.” He shoves his leg into the boot of his new peg and tests the straps. The leg is far nicer than his old one, some sort of light but incredibly strong hardwood. Not iron at all, and the difference in weight is incredible. He slides off the hammock and walks to the door with barely a stagger. “And fuck you all very much.” Shaw’s head hangs lower.

“Fuck you too, Silver,” Darby says, good cheer restored, and he slides the shade back on the lantern, dropping the cabin back into blackness. 

Silver seethes his way up to the main deck, careful to avoid the watch and the two men already sleeping in the open air. It’s not uncommon in fair weather to do so, but it’s generally by choice, and now he’s consigned here, or the main hold with the rest of the men, or--no. He won’t be joining his jackass of a captain in the cabin any time soon.

His customary seat is at least quiet and solitary, and he settles into it, exhausted and miserable and very awake. 

“Why is my Bosun’s Mate lurking outside my cabin, banging into things and leaning against the window and generally making a complete nuisance of himself in the middle of the night?” Flint’s voice from behind him at this point is almost expected, given the kind of night Silver is having, and he just lifts his shoulder sluggishly, not looking around.

“Caleb is a ridiculous mothering hen, as you well know, since you set him on me in Portsmouth as some kind of nanny.”

Flint breathes out hard through his nose, a huff like an angry horse, but the way he leans against the mast shows how tired he must be too, an echo of John’s exhausted slump.

“Come to bed,” he says abruptly, and John scowls.

“Fuck no. I’m sleeping here.”

“John.”

“Don’t you dare,” Silver hisses at him, angry all over again. “If you want to cosset the cripple on your crew, I clearly can’t stop you, but don’t expect me to fuck you at the end of it.”

He gains a mean sort of satisfaction when he can almost hear Flint’s teeth grinding together, but it’s dashed a moment later at the sound of the man’s voice.

“John. They took you from me.” It’s not angry, and it’s not demanding, and his voice breaks just a bit in the middle, and finally John looks up at him, this man that he loves and that, god help him, he understands, even when he doesn’t want to. Flint’s wearing just a loose white shirt and plain breeches, barefoot in the dark, leaning on the mast and he looks like a simple sailor, a farmer, anything but the force of nature that he is. The slope of his shoulder and the curve of his cheek are limned with the faint light of the deck lanterns, and John’s heart...caves.

“And someday they might again, and you’ll doubtless get me back, and I still won’t let you be an ass about it,” he answers, resigned, and holds out his hand. 

Flint seizes it, hard, and his hand clamps down tight around Silver’s fingers, and they hold there for a moment, just breathing. Then Flint gives a tug and Silver lets him lift him up easily to his feet, offering no resistance at all.

“Come to bed?” This time it’s a proper question, and John smiles at him.

“All right.” 

James sighs again, and something rigid in his spine eases right out of him. He doesn’t let go of Silver’s hand as they make their careful way back to the cabin, or as he’s closing and locking the door, or as he turns down the lamp and tugs Silver to the clearly unused bed.

“You’re going to have to let go eventually,” Silver points out, almost laughing at the way James is towing him around the cabin. And is now trying to undo Silver’s trouser buttons with one hand.

“Never,” James says, not looking up, but his voice is iron and fire and so deadly serious that the laugh falls away from Silver’s face like it had never been.

He gets his free hand up, hooks it around Flint’s neck, and tugs him forward just enough to bump their foreheads gently together.

“Sounds fine to me,” he answers quietly, completely unwilling to challenge him further on this, and Flint finally gets his top three buttons free, clearly considers this enough, and kisses him.

It’s fierce and hungry, almost an attack, and John crumbles back onto the bed without resistance under it. Days, it’s been, but it feels longer, and he’s barely touched or been touched since Maryland, first pain and then the anger holding them back. Flint hovers over him, mouths sealed together, yanking his own shirt off with one hand, then peeling down his breeches. It’s rough and graceless and gorgeous, breathless, John pushing his own clothes off with shaking hands, getting his trousers down, unbuckling the leg. 

Then Flint’s hands are back on him, broad palms nearly spanning his whole waist and mapping his ribs, his belly, stroking up his chest, all while nudging his hips between Silver’s thighs, little urgent twists until Silver yields and spreads his knees wide.

“Oh fuck,” James breathes into his collarbone, and Silver can feel the rigid heat of him nestled right there, against his balls, hot and needy. His hips keep moving, and the friction sends white heat to Silver’s fingertips. “I need. Can I.” He turns his head on a harsh breath, and his hands slide down under Silver’s hips, kneading and spreading, and it feels so fucking good Silver arches his back and moans.

Hands and mouths they’ve done, but James has never asked for this and John has never offered, nor the other way round. Too inconvenient and too new, but right now he feels reckless and his skin is hot and sensitive all over and his cock is an aching hard thing against his belly. James is like an animal above him, his whole body rocking now, biting kisses along his shoulder and chest and then latching onto his throat, sucking and licking and Jesus Christ, how will he survive this?

“Yes, do it, come on,” he can barely recognize his own hoarse voice and he meets green eyes that look up and lock with his, and James must see that he means it, because he flushes even darker, then kisses him again. Still desperate and wet and urgent, tongues tangling and then nipping at his lip, but sweeter now, easing down that wild heat into something a little more controlled.

“You’re going to love this,” he promises, and Silver finds it in himself to roll his eyes, because honestly, the arrogance, but before he can formulate a reply James is reaching for something and then sitting up between his thighs and tapping his hip pointedly. “Over with you. And don’t make that face, I can clearly recall the noises you made on my fingers.”

Silver huffs a little embarrassed laugh at that, because it’s true, and obligingly rolls to his belly, and shivers all over when he feels those capable palms smooth up the backs of his thighs, over his ass, his back, to his shoulders. Then he has Flint’s full weight on him, blanketing him, and kisses are being nuzzled in through his hair. 

“You’ll love this,” he hears murmured near his ear, and that’s the sound he hangs on to as tallow-slicked fingers slowly, relentlessly stretch him open, the feeling so intense he scrambles his knees up underneath him and rocks back and keens. As James tells him how gorgeous he is, how desperately he wants him, how hot and soft and silky he feels inside. As, finally, he feels the blunt, unapologetic press of a cock, definitely bigger than fingers, and he goes still and wary.

“Breathe, and relax,” James tells him, his voice tight, and Silver tosses his hair back and turns his head to glare over his shoulder because for fuck’s sake--

His distraction was enough and with a long, heavy push, James is in him, inside, and it’s like nothing he’s ever felt before. Strange and alien and the most intimate thing in the world, a painful ache that’s more of a stretch than anything. His arms shake and he tips his head down to the bed, trying to remember how to breathe suddenly when it feels like there’s no room left in him for anything but James.

“That’s it,” a quiet voice, kisses on his shoulder, he can feel those, and then the tiniest circle of hips and he’s gasping, what the fuck, that’s incredible. “There you are, I have you. You’re mine, now,” and James sounds pleased and pleasured, his voice a low rich purr of satisfaction that is almost as good as his cock. 

When he starts to move in earnest, John thinks he may never be able to speak again. Slow drag of out and in, nerves firing wildly, James’ hand on his cock, bringing it back to hardness again. That place inside getting rubbed so well, he twists his hips to chase for more, then again because it makes James make the most amazing noises.

It feels like it goes on for hours, but James is soon shaking, shivering against his back despite the even, careful rhythm of his thrusts. And finally his hips snap forward hard, and punch a gasp out of John and a shout from James and he can feel the trip-hammer jerk of orgasm, every one of them hitting his sweet spot and twisting the heavy, hot knot of pleasure in his gut a little tighter. 

Even before he’s done, James is pulling out--and that’s a very unpleasant sensation that Silver barely gets to notice, because he’s being rolled over and spread out and James, looking absolutely ruined, is diving down to suck his cock in, and putting two fingers in where his cock had just been. It’s so fast and smooth that Silver hardly gets his head around the new position before he’s being battered by pleasure, hot suction and a wicked tongue on his cock, clever fingers stroking inside, and he kicks his heel twice against the bed and his hips buck up and up and he’s coming. Burning sudden and fierce through him and he howls, hands fisted in his own hair and tugging hard because Flint’s are busy right now. 

“Holy fuck,” he breathes, long moments later, one hand dropping to where James is using his belly as a pillow, stroking over his head gently, tracing a finger over one expressive brow. “You’re right. I loved that.”

“Mmmm,” James agrees, and slides up a little, kissing along the way. Silver loves it when he’s like this, right after. Like some sort of great ginger cat, affectionate and rubbing all over him, shameless. And often almost unable to speak, at least until his brain begins to function again. 

He runs a hand down his neck and back, stroking, then over the firm swell of that gorgeous pale ass, and registers the little shiver of reaction with interest. 

“Perhaps I should have you, next,” he muses aloud, quietly. Grinning a little. He strokes again. “Of course, I’d have to go so very, very slowly, since I’m still learning. Take my time. Really explore.”

James turns his face into Silver’s hair, wild on the pillow, and whimpers.

Later, when they’ve both rested and had bread and some rum, and have not even considered putting on clothes, James will sit with his back to the bulkhead, and John will sit in his lap, facing him, twined together so closely they might as well be sharing skin. Silver’s hair, loose around them, will make a dark and quiet curtain for kisses and secrets to be shared behind, and James will make him come again, on his fingers and against his belly and with the filthy promises he makes. And after all of that, they will sleep.

(the next day, Silver crosses paths with Old Pete on the foc’sle. The old reprobate smirks at him and taps his nose in the most awful knowing way. Silver avoids him the entire rest of the voyage back to Nassau.)


End file.
